Food, travel & Lifestyle

Dim sum at Happyhappyjoyjoy, Amsterdam

I love asian food – be it Vietnamese, Indonesian, Chinese, Korean or Thai. So I was Happyhappyjoyjoy to find out I could find it all under roof, in walking distance of our apartment.

Happyhappyjoyjoy is relatively new and is a hip and happening place to get Asian street food in West Amsterdam. So hip and happening in fact that we had to wait over two weeks for a table.

Fortunately, it was well worth the wait. The restaurant is an explosion of colour and the ceiling is covered in red parasols – making all my pictures look slightly like they were taken in a photographer’s dark room. The atmosphere was buzzing and our waiter was super friendly.

We sat down, ordered a lychee juice and a ‘cheeky’ beer and perused the extensive menu. Happyhappyjoyjoy recommend about 3-4 plates each. Challenge accepted and then some.

I had the best dim sum I have EVER had. The duck gyoza was just the right amount of squishy yet crispy and the beef was crispy and delicious.

We shared three types of Bao. Pork was the winner for me but I would gladly eat all three again.

Followed by stir fried chicken with cashews and red curry with beef, both served with sticky jasmine rice. The stir fried chicken was my favourite part of the meal – sticky chicken and cashews is a winning combination.

By this point I was ready to roll home but Matt wanted to try the mango bao for dessert. He loved it, I thought it was okay (weird). Tasted like a sugared doughnut you’d get from a circus, stuffed with mango and ice-cream. Which I can imagine is up most people’s streets but not for me, thanks.

It’s my new favourite food find in Amsterdam and we loved it so much we booked to come back in a couple of weeks time.